Number of jobs available: 1
Region: South East
City/Town: West Malling
Building/Site: Orchard House
Grade: Staff Grade 5
Post Type: Permanent
Working Pattern: Full Time
Role Type: Environment & Sustainability, Operational Delivery
Salary Minimum: £37,462
Job description
If you’re passionate about our water environment and want to make a difference to the quality of our rivers and lakes in Kent, South London and East Sussex, then this might be the perfect role for you.
We are looking for someone enthusiastic and self-motivated, with experience of water quality issues to help review, challenge and advise on stakeholder plans and permissions, to ensure they protect and improve our freshwater environment.
You will work with national policy, colleagues, partners and key customers on aspects of water planning to help respond to current pressures and future demands. You will seek optimal solutions to environmental problems and advise on the regulatory requirements that will help us improve the quality of our rivers and lakes to create a better place for people, wildlife and the environment. You will also work with water companies to reduce the impacts from sewage discharges.
Knowledge or experience in some of the following areas would be very valuable in this role:
• Water company performance/regulation
• Water quality modelling
• Water company price review
• Urban Pollution Management processes and standards
• The Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017
We support membership of an appropriate professional institute such as CIWEM and encourage ongoing learning and development.
Responding to incidents is a central part of what we do. You will be required to have an incident role and make yourself available to respond to incidents or provide business continuity support during an incident. This may attract an additional payment and full training and alternative working arrangements will be available to support you with your incident role.
The team
The Integrated Environment Planning Team works to improve our evidence base and drive integrated delivery to achieve the best for Kent and South London’s environment.
The team includes specialists focusing on:
• River Basin Planning
• Commissioning our local monitoring activities
• Water Quality
• Water Company investment programmes
• Drought management.
We work with other teams locally and nationally to shape ways of working and contribute to our local and Defra’s 25-Year-Plan aims.
Experience/skills required
• A degree / or equivalent in a relevant environmental discipline.
• Ability to demonstrate leadership in a specialist technical area.
• Good research/analysis skills, with an ability to make proportionate, evidence-based inferences/proposals from information.
• Experience of gathering, maintaining and quality-assuring data/information.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to prioritise, plan, track, deliver and evaluate work.
• Ability to work under own initiative and as part of a larger, cross-functional/multidisciplinary team
• Sensitive to the needs of the internal and external customers and able to deliver outcomes through these.
• Experience of translating internal guidance and instructions into local delivery.
The Environment Agency: we don’t just talk about diversity; we seek it, embrace it and live it, for the benefit of our staff, our communities and our environment. We are looking for someone who will live and breathe this ethos to help us achieve our goal.
Contact and additional information
We value a diverse workforce and are fully committed to having a workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We welcome flexible working patterns for all our vacancies, including job share, so please include any information regarding your preferred working arrangements on your application.
The role will be based at Orchard House, Addington, Kent. We currently have a hybrid working arrangement with a mix of home and office working.
Interviews will be held in April 2023
For further details please contact Priya Sharma priya.sharma@environment-agency.gov.uk or Robert Callahan robert.callahan@environment-agency.gov.uk or call our customer contact number 03708 506 506 to have an informal chat about the role.
Job description attachment 1
Job Profile – 26071.pdf – 65KB
Candidate pack
Candidate Pack – 26071.docx – 1867KB
Converted File Candidate Pack – 26071.docx.pdf – 513KB
Closing Date: 16/04/2023, 23:55 hours
Level of security checks required: Basic Check
Competence 1: Environmental Awareness
Description
We encourage you to refer to our “EA capability dictionary” which can be viewed in the attached candidate pack. You may find it helpful to research the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when formulating your response.
PLEASE NOTE: Your answer will be used for interview selection – please draw out your skills and experience in your response.
Description: Appreciates the impact that activities have on the environment and identifies ways to protect and preserve the environment for the future and limit negative environmental impact.
Explain a project you have been involved with where you used your environmental awareness and knowledge to help protect the environment and delivered a successful environmental outcome.
Competence 2: Achieves Results
Description
We encourage you to refer to our “EA capability dictionary” which can be viewed in the attached candidate pack. You may find it helpful to research the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when formulating your response.
PLEASE NOTE: Your answer will be used for interview selection – please draw out your skills and experience in your response.
Description: Sets and delivers high work standards, demonstrates the drive to meet targets. Prioritises and organises tasks and resources to ensure timely achievement of results.
Please describe a time when you delivered successfully in the face of considerable challenges or obstacles and with limited instruction.
Competence 3: Takes Decisions and Solves Problems
Description
We encourage you to refer to our “EA capability dictionary” which can be viewed in the attached candidate pack. You may find it helpful to research the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when formulating your response.
PLEASE NOTE: Your answer will be used for interview selection – please draw out your skills and experience in your response.
Description: Finds and delivers optimal solutions by effectively analysing all the information, probing to develop alternatives and taking sound and timely decisions.
Describe a time when you had to solve a particularly complex problem or make a difficult decision. What steps did you take and what was the outcome?
Competence 4: Focuses on Customers and Partners
Description
We encourage you to refer to our “EA capability dictionary” which can be viewed in the attached candidate pack. You may find it helpful to research the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when formulating your response.
PLEASE NOTE: Your answer will be used for interview selection – please draw out your skills and experience in your response.
Description: Addresses the needs of internal and external customers, provides rapid and effective responses
Please tell us about a time you have delivered a successful outcome by working with and balancing the needs of your customers and/or partners.
Role specific license requirements: Full Driving Licence would be an advantage but not essential
If you are applying from the Civil Service please note that the Environment Agency is not a part of HM Civil Service and you would not be a Crown Servant in the event of being appointed. Therefore, you will not be eligible for continuous service. For applicants who currently work in local government or other bodies listed in the Redundancy Payments (Continuity of Employment in Local Government etc) (Modification) Order 1999, you may be eligible for continuous service for the purpose of calculating any future redundancy payment. If you are unsure of your status then you should contact your own HR Team.
We are fully committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce to reflect the communities we serve. We welcome flexible working patterns for all our vacancies, including job share, so please include clearly any information regarding your preferred working arrangements on your application.
We also have a Guaranteed Interview Policy to support those with a disability who are seeking employment. We have committed to guaranteeing an interview to anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.
The Environment Agency, as a Non-Departmental Public Body, is committed to providing value for money and utilises Central Government frameworks and contracts for all external recruitment needs. For this reason, we are unable to engage with the market directly through post, email or phone calls . Should you wish to become a support supplier on one of these frameworks or contracts please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/become-a-crown-commercial-service-supplier/becoming-a-supplier-through-the-crown-commercial-service-what-you-need-to-know for more information.
